


When You've Got a Childhood Like This

by infiniteshooshpapping



Series: Everything Is Subject to Change [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abuse, Abusive Bro, Angst, Gen, I'm Sorry, POV Dave, Strider Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-15
Updated: 2014-05-15
Packaged: 2018-01-24 14:16:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1608158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infiniteshooshpapping/pseuds/infiniteshooshpapping
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Back story on why Dirk and Dave no longer live with Bro.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When You've Got a Childhood Like This

You used to live with your two brothers. You were the youngest, Dirk was the middle child, and your oldest brother was always an enigma; he refused to be addressed as anything other than "Bro." You would still be living with both of them, but Dirk got the two of you out of Bro's shitty apartment the literal minute he turned 18. That day and the days leading up to it stand out in memories of your childhood more vividly than you could ever begin to explain, as much as you wish they didn't. You try so hard to forget those days.

_You remember them anyway._

Years in the past, but not many...

It's dark when you wake up to the sound of shouting and sigh. You know they're at it again. You really hate that Bro insists on being so mean, especially since Dirk's birthday is so soon. Sometimes you get sad when you think about Dirk leaving you and Bro to go to college, but Dirk keeps telling you he'll take care of everything so that you can come live with him, too. You just smile and playfully ask how he plans on going to school if he's taking care of you. He smiles back at you, but he looks like he's about to cry. He assures you that it won't be a problem and insists you don't worry about it. You like that Dirk wants you to come with him. It sounds like fun.

Your train of thought gets thoroughly derailed when the sound of snapping wood catches your attention. That's when you remember how much you hate it when your big brothers strife inside, let alone at night when you're trying to sleep. You wonder why they decided now would be a good time to practice their "mad rad strifin' skillz." You grumble to yourself and attempt to block out the sound and go back to bed. You quickly find that you can do neither of those things.

You roll out of bed and stumble to your door, haphazardly throwing it open. You pad across the floor of the hallway to the living room, following the sounds of altercation as you rub sleep from your eyes. On your way you see signs of struggle. The closer you get to the source of your sleep deprivation, the more obvious the collateral damage. You see contents of pillows and shreds of clothing and, oh there it is, the table you heard snapping in half is lying in pieces on the floor. After your brief reconnaissance, you determine that this is definitely one of their more involved strifes. It's easy to know where the brothers are at this point; you just need to follow the sound of flesh pounding flesh. You turn the corner and that's when you see them.

You can really only see Bro's back as he's hunched over the smaller form of Dirk's body. At first you think nothing of it. Just a regular ol' strife in the Strider household. Your mind quickly changes as you take in more of the scene before you.You now notice that the carpet beneath the two seems to be stained with a dark substance you immediately assume to be blood, though at this point, you're not sure whose. You also take note of the fact that you no longer hear screaming, only deafening sound of fists against bone and a weird, strained whimper. It doesn't take you much time at all to connect the dots and suddenly you are filled with overwhelming understanding.

You used to admire dirk for his many cuts and bruises because he put on a prideful front. You'd always thought them to be marks of success, of perseverance from a strife, but now you see that assumption was wrong. They were marks of failure dealt by family. They were marks of complete resignation and submission to his fate as an eternal punching bag.

The longer you stand there unnoticed, the more your emotions stir violently inside you. Every time you see Bro's fist swing and collide with Dirk's body, you wince. Every time you hear the resultant sickening sound of Dirk's abused whimpers, the urge to step in and defend him intensifies. In the intense emotion of the moment, you're stricken with the decision to jump into the fray, regardless of the consequences.

You quickly realize you had overestimated the power that an adrenaline rush had given you.

You silently run up behind Bro and begin pounding him in the back with your small fists as tears of rage flow down your cheeks.

"Leave Dirk alone! You're hurting him!" you scream at him.

Bro stops pummeling Dirk for a moment and turns to look at you. The look in his eyes is overwhelmingly full of hatred. It distorts his face beyond recognition. Though you know the person he's supposed to be, he looks more animalistic than the Bro that raised you after your parents had died. You shudder in shock at this side of him you never knew. He leans back and sits on his haunches, twisting to push you down off of him. The air rushes out of your chest at the force and leaves you gasping for air and writhing in acute pain. Bro stands low to the ground and walks over to your vulnerable figure and crouches down by your face and stares you down menacingly. Your eyes go wide in fearful anticipation of what's to come.

When Bro seems distracted, you look over at Dirk and call to him, "Dirk!" you half whimper, half yell. His name sounds scratched and broken in your throat. "Dirk, c'mon! Get up! Plea-" your words die in your throat as you receive a heavy smack to the face.

"Shut up, you fucking idiot. You don't seem to fucking comprehend that I'm in charge and what I say goes and I shouldn't hafta be explainin' all this to your dumb-ass self so just shut the fuck up and stay outta this!" His harsh words wash over your face and you take note of the very obvious stench of alcohol on his breath. Bro apparently doesn't like the way you're looking at him or your lack of obedience to his authority over you because the next thing you know, his fist is colliding with your jaw.

You wail out in pain and your vision blurs with tears before instinctively flinching and tightly shut your eyes. You wait in stressful anticipation for the flurry of blows that's sure to come. You wait and wait, but it never comes. Instead, you feel Bro's weight shifting off of your slight frame. Out of fear, you keep your eyes squeezed tightly closed until you hear him stumbling out of the room, then out of the apartment, trailing curses and creative expletives behind him. When you're absolutely sure he's gone and not coming back, you open your eyes and lift your now-throbbing head from the floor.

You feel a fresh wave of tears sweep over you when you see Dirk's body sprawled on the ground. He looks like a broken doll -- his limbs are splayed and bent in unnatural directions; he looks absolutely pitiful.

You gathered as much strength as you could and used it to roll onto your stomach and crawl over to Dirk. Your hands and knees made gross, wet squishing sounds on the blood-soaked carpet; the sound combined with the pain and extensive emotional stimuli is starting to make you nauseous. Once you get close enough, you grab Dirk's shoulders and shake him a bit. He's limp in your hands, but you keep at it anyway.

"Dirk! Come on you gotta wake up! Bro's gone... C'mon I'm scared," you plead with him. He doesn't move. You keep shaking him, willing him to stand, or sit up at the least. You're a bawling mess over Dirk's listless form as you repeatedly attempt, and fail, to will him into action.

You can't take it anymore. You have to get both of you out of here somehow.

You give up on your vain attempts of trying to illicit some sort of response from your brother and instead decide to focus your remaining energy on getting bandages and ice packs from the bathroom. You're pretty sure Bro won't be back for a few hours. He usually books it after strifes. Because of this habit, you safely assume you'll have time to patch up Dirk and let him rest before Bro gets back.

Once you return with your first aid kit, you see that Dirk has moved from his sprawled position and is now curled on his side with his back towards you. As you approach him, you can hear him crying and this makes you cry, too. This is the most vulnerable either of you have ever been with each other and its incredibly painful. You walk to him and begin disinfecting and wrapping the more accessible wounds with some rubbing alcohol you found in the bathroom and a roll of gauze bandaging. You place an ice pack to his brow and he moves his top arm slowly to hold it in place.

His movements are slow and jerky and you can't even fathom the amount of pain he's in. Eventually, he is able to painfully stretch and move in order to help you with the first aid effort.

His wounds are so extensive that you run out of gauze and alcohol and have to rummage through the trash heap that is the kitchen to eventually find some Band-Aids and a room-temperature, half-empty bottle of scotch. To anyone else, your basic medical skills might seem impossible, but you've spent the past few years helping your brothers with their post-strife cuts and scrapes. Unfortunately, Dirk has sustained more than a few simple cuts and bruises.

His hair is a matted mess, his straw colored locks soaked with his own sweat and thickening blood flowing from a large wound at his temple. You think he might've been hit with the hilt of Bro's katana. Dirk's eyes are swollen nearly shut from the twin black eyes. His nose is bleeding and looks to be broken at the bridge. He has a small cut on the side of his cheek that is already starting to scab over, as has his busted and swollen lip. His jaw has a large yellowish-purple bruise forming along its length. He has bruises littering the expanse of his arms and legs, his elbows and knees rubbed raw from the carpet. There are various cuts and gashes along his body, the worst of which being one deep gash stretching the length of his spine and several deep slashes on his abdomen and chest. You can tell by the way his face scrunches up when he moves his ice pack from one eye to the other that he's probably dislocated his shoulder and may have broken a few fingers.

You leave Dirk in his broken, bandaged glory to get bleach out from under the kitchen sink. When you come back with the bleach and some rags, you begin to clean the blood stains on the carpet, saving the massive accumulation under Dirk because you don't want him moving unnecessarily. Dirk watches as you clean his blood, it makes you sad.

Soon the smell of bleach, blood, and disinfectants gets to you and your nostrils burn, your eyes water. You try and rush the carpet cleaning process in order to escape the smell and once you're nearly done, you turn to Dirk.

"Do you think you could maybe try to walk now? Maybe just standing? I'm not trying to rush you or anything but we gotta get out of here as soon as possible and get you to a hospital."

Dirk sighs and slowly nods in agreement, "But no hospital, not only can we not afford it, but also they would have bro come get us right after we worked so hard to finally get away."

You silently agree with him and carefully help him to stand, minding his injuries.

Dirk then directs you to a duffel bag in the bottom of his closet. He tells you he's been planning on running away with you for a while and that now may be your only chance.

You go to his room and begin digging through his closet to find the duffel bag he described. Out of curiosity, you unzip it and take a look inside. You can see shoes, clothes, and wads of cash without too much digging. After you've satisfied your curiosity, you zip it back up and take it to the living room.

When you walk in you notice that Dirk isn't there, but after a brief investigation, come to the understanding that he's moved to the kitchen and is now raiding the few contents of the pantry for nonperishable foods.

"Hey, get over here and help me get some food in that bag so we can bolt."

"Yeah, yeah, okay," you mutter as you walk over and shove a bag of Doritos, a bag of Cheetos, a two liter of orange Crush, and a gallon of apple juice into the duffel bag. Dirk hands you a final sleeve of saltine crackers. Dirk double checks the contents of the bag before telling you to zip it up and sling the now heavy bag over your slender shoulders. You have to help Dirk to the door. Before you head out the door, you take one last look at the apartment that became your personal prison. You flip out the lights and the both of you walk, or limp, in Dirk's case, out the door, from one life to another.

The road ahead of you is wrought with difficulties and you know in your mind that today is only the beginning.

**Author's Note:**

> If you find any typos, sentence fragments, or anything else that needs fixing, let me know and I'll be glad to fix it.


End file.
